Hurricane Antony – the latest to be spun off the apparently permanent El Nino storm which continues to wreak havoc around the Pacific Rim – touched here only briefly, but it was long enough to destroy everything these people had built up over generations.
The sun has yet to rise on this devastation. Not even the rescue crews have arrived yet. These pictures are brought to you exclusively by an OurWorld remote news-gathering unit, once again on the scene of breaking news ahead of the rest.
We will return to these scenes when the first aid helicopters arrive – they are due from the mainland any minute now – and in the meantime we can take you to an underwater view of the coral reef here. This was the last remnant of a great community of reefs which lined the Tanon Strait and the southern Negros, most of it long destroyed by dynamite fishing. Now this last survivor, preserved for a generation by devoted experts, has been devastated …
Willoughby Cott (v/o): … now we can see that goal again as we ride on Staedler’s shoulder with OurWorld’s exclusive As-The-Sportsman-Sees-It feature.
You can see the line of defenders ahead of Staedler pushing forward as he approaches, expecting him to make a pass which would leave Cramer off- side. But Staedler instead heads away from the wing into deeper midfield, beats one defender, then a second-the goalkeeper doesn’t know which threat to counter, Staedler or Cramer-and here you can see the gap Staedler spotted, opening up at the near post, and he puts on a burst of acceleration and shoots!
And now, thanks to OurWorld’s exclusive infield imaging technology, we are riding with the ball as it arcs into that top comer, and the Beijing crowd is ecstatic …
Simon Alcala (v/o): … coming up later, we bring you more exclusive behind-the-scenes pictures of Russian Tsarina Irum’s visit to a top Johannesburg boutique and what was Madonna’s daughter having done to her nose in his exclusive Los Angeles cosmetic-surgery clinic?
OurWorld Paparazzi: we take you into the lives of the famous, whether they like it or not!
But first: here’s a General Assembly we’d like to see more of! Lunchtime yesterday, UN Secretary General Halliwell took a break from UNESCO’s World Hydrology Initiative conference in Cuba.
Halliwell thought this rooftop garden was secure. And she was right. Well, almost right. The roof is covered by a one-way mirror – it allows in the sun’s soothing rays, but keeps out prying eyes. That is, everyone’s eyes but ours!
Let’s go on down through the roof now-yes, through the roof-and there she is, certainly a sight for sore eyes as she enjoys the filtered Caribbean sunlight au naturel. Despite the mirrored roof Halliwell is cautious-you can see here she is covering up as a light plane passes overhead-but she should have known she can’t hide from OurWorld!
As you can see Mr. Gravity has been kind to our SecGen; Halliwell is as much a knockout as when she shimmied across the stages of the world all of forty years ago. But the question is, is she still all the original Halliwell, or has she accepted a little help? …
Chapter 9 – THE AGENT
When the FBI caught up with Hiram, Kate felt a rush of relief.
She had been happy enough to be scooping the world-but she had been doing that anyhow, with or without WormCams. And she’d become increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that such a powerful technology should be exclusively in the hands of a sleazy megalomaniac capitalist like Hiram Patterson.
As it happened, she was in Hiram’s office the day it all came to a head. But it didn’t turn out the way she expected.
Kate paced back and forth. She was arguing with Hiram, as usual.
‘For God’s sake, Hiram. How trivial do you want to get?’
Hiram leaned back in his fake-leather chair and gazed out of the window at downtown Seattle, considering his reply.
Once, Kate knew, this had been the presidential suite of one of the city’s better hotels. Though the big picture window remained, Hiram had retained none of the grand trimmings of this room; whatever his faults, Hiram Patterson was not pretentious. The room was now a regular working office, the only furniture the big conference table and its set of upright chairs, a coffee spigot and a water fountain. There was a rumor that Hiram kept a bed here, rolled up in a compartment built into the walls. And yet there was a lack of a human touch, Kate thought. There wasn’t even a single image of a family member-his two sons, for instance.
But maybe he doesn’t need images, Kate thought sourly. Maybe his sons themselves are trophy enough.
‘So,’ Hiram said slowly, ‘now you’re appointing yourself my bloody conscience, Ms. Manzoni.’
‘Oh, come on, Hiram. It’s not a question of conscience. Look, you have a technological monopoly which is the envy of every other news-gathering organization on the planet. Can’t you see how you’re wasting it? Gossip about Russian royalty and candid-camera shows and on-the-field shots of soccer games … I didn’t come into this business to photograph the tits of the UN Secretary General.’
‘Those tits, as you put it,’ he said dryly, ‘attracted a billion people. My prime concern is beating the competition. And I’m doing that.’
T ‘But you’re turning yourself into the ultimate paparazzo. Is that the limit of your vision? You have such power to do good.’
He smiled. ‘
‘Good’? What does good have to do with it? I have to give people what they want, Manzoni. If I don’t, some other bastard will. Anyway I don’t see what you’re complaining about. I ran your piece on England invading Scotland. That was genuine hard-core news.’
‘But you trivialized it by wrapping it up in tabloid garbage! Just as you trivialize the whole water-war issue. Look, the UN hydrology convention has been a joke.’
‘I don’t need another lecture on the issues of the day, Manzoni. You know, you’re so pompous- But you understand so little. Don’t you get it? People don’t want to know about the issues. Because of you and your damn Wormwood, people understand that the issues just don’t matter. It doesn’t matter how we pump water around the planet, or any of the rest of it, because the Wormwood is going to scrape it all away anyhow. All people want is entertainment. Distraction.’
‘And that’s the limit of your ambition?’
He shrugged. ‘What else is there to do?’
She snorted her disgust. ‘You know, your monopoly won’t last forever. There’s a lot of speculation in the industry and the media about how you’re achieving all your scoops. It can’t be long before somebody figures it out and repeats your research.’
‘I have patents.’
‘Oh, sure, that will protect you. If you keep this up you’ll have nothing left to hand on to Bobby.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t you talk about my son. You know, every day I regret bringing you in here, Manzoni. You’ve brought in some good stories. But you have no sense of balance, no sense at all.’
‘Balance?. Is that what you call it? Using the WormCam for nothing more than celebrity beaver shots?’
A soft bell tone sounded. Hiram lifted his head to the air. ‘I said I wasn’t to be interrupted.’
The Search Engine’s inoffensive tones sounded from the air. ‘I’m afraid I have an override, Mr. Patterson.’
‘What kind of override?’
‘There’s a Michael Mavens here to see you. You too, Ms. Manzoni.’
‘Mavens? I don’t know any … ‘
‘He’s from the FBI, Mr. Patterson. The Federal Bureau of … ‘
‘I know what the FBI is.’ Hiram thumped his desk, frustrated. ‘One bloody thing after another.’
At last, Kate thought.
Hiram glared at her. ‘Just watch what you say to this arsehole.’
She frowned. ‘This government-appointed law enforcement arsehole from the FBI, you mean? Even you answer to the law, Hiram. I’ll say what I think best.’
He clenched a fist, seemed ready to say more, then just shook his head. He stalked to his picture window, and the blue light of the sky, filtered through the tinted glass, evoked highlights from his bald pate. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘Bloody, bloody hell.’
Michael Mavens, FBI Special Agent, wore the standard issue charcoal-gray suit, collarless shirt and shoelace tie. He was blond, whiplash thin, and he looked as if he had played a lot of squash, no doubt at some ultracompetitive FBI academy.
He seemed remarkably young to Kate: no more than mid- to late twenties. And he was nervous, dragging awkwardly at the chair Hiram offered him, rumbling with his briefcase as he opened it and dug out a SoftScreen.
Kate glanced at Hiram. She saw calculation in his broad, dark face; Hiram had spotted this agent’s surprising discomfort too.
After showing them his badge, Mavens said, ‘I’m glad to find you both here, Mr. Patterson, Ms Manzoni. I’m investigating an apparent security breach.’